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The Free Dictionary call them people "who have been imprisoned for holding or advocating dissenting political views....for holding, expressing, or acting in accord with particular political beliefs."
In the 1960s, Amnesty International (AI) coined the term "prisoner of conscience," referring to anyone incarcerated for their race, religion, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, beliefs, or lifestyle.
In a London Observer May 28, 1961 article titled, "The Forgotten Prisoners," AI's founder Peter Benenson (1921 - 2005) defined the term as follows:
"Any person who is physically restrained (in prison or otherwise) for expressing any opinion which he honestly holds and which does not advocate or condone personal violence."
"Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government." Millions are affected globally - "by no means (all) behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains, and their numbers are growing."
"That is why we have started Appeal for Amnesty (AI), 1961. The campaign, which opens today, is the result of an initiative by a group of lawyers, writers and publishers in London, who share the underlying conviction expressed by Voltaire: 'I detest your views, but am prepared to die for your right to express them.' "
Howard Zinn called dissent "the highest form of patriotism. In fact, if patriotism means being true to the principles for which your country is supposed to stand, then certainly the right to dissent is one of those principles. And if we're exercising that right to dissent, it's a patriotic act....One of the great mistakes (about) patriotism....is to think (it) means support for your government....(ignoring America's Declaration of Independence principle that) when governments have become destructive (of life, liberty and equality) it is the right of the people....to alter or abolish" it.
Incarceration as an Instrument of Social Control
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